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PVs - summer vs winter


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2 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Not far off how north you are.

 

Coincidence, really. Latitude relative to the ecliptic (plane of the Earth's orbit round the Sun) is probably nearer 80° in February so that'd be about the right angle for direct sunlight but that doesn't see as much of the sky above so tilting the panel back a bit improves the input from scattered radiation. Just happens to be by about 20° so roughly cancelling the effect of the Sun being “below” the plane of the equator.

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@Home Farm remind us, what orientation do your panels have? Did you mention in another thread that your ridge is north/south so the panels are likely east or west facing? I was a bit surprised by your comment that PVGIS shows the optimum angle for your panels to be 42° for autumn, I'd expect it to be steeper but perhaps it's because of the orientation. If so it might be worth going into a bit when you do your spring update.

 

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  • 4 years later...

PVGIS is giving me an optimum panel tilt angle of 0 degrees. Is this because I live somewhere that is tragically cloudy? (Scottish Highlands)

Even in January the output is higher at 15 degrees than 35 degrees.

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26 minutes ago, diarmidR said:

optimum panel tilt angle of 0 degrees.

Are you reading from vertical or horizontal, from horizontal makes zero sense. 0 tilt i.e. horizontal/flat will give best part of nothing in winter.

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There is a good argument in Scotland for having vertical or near vertical panels.  That will give more generation in winter when you want all you can get.

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